INVESTIGATING THE FACTORS AFFECTING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) USAGE OF TURKISH STUDENTS IN PISA 2009

ABSTRACT

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become an indispensable part of the 21^st century. Having basic ICT skills is now seen as an important attribute that members of the young cohort should possess in order to be successful in life. Thus, countries all over the world, including Turkey, have attempted to adjust their educational policies to this new phenomenon of ICT. In this context, this study aims to investigate the impact of both household- and school-level factors on the ICT usage of students in Turkey. Given the multilevel structure of the data, the hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) method was used for statistical analyses. The results of the analyses show that there are significant differences between schools in terms of students’ ICT usage, both for entertainment and school-related tasks. These differences, however, are mostly explained by the household-level factors. The only school-related factor that seems to be important for students’ ICT usage is the student’s involvement in ICT-related tasks at school.